


And That's What I Call A Dream

by earlgreywarden



Category: Farscape
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bonnie & Clyde, F/M, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 16:31:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4066831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreywarden/pseuds/earlgreywarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Uncharted Territories, unexpected circumstances can bring together unexpected people.  </p><p>A oneshot Bonnie & Clyde AU fic half inspired by a Tumblr prompt, half by Liars, Guns and Money.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And That's What I Call A Dream

**I.  
** The first time they meet, it’s across a bar. She’s waiting for a mark and he’s waiting for her to order something. He tries to make small talk about the weather, the current state of society and what a pretty girl like her is doing at a bar alone. He hopes she tips well. She thinks he’s annoying.

She orders a drink to make him go away.

Her mark enters the bar and it’s time to go to work. But as she begins her approach, he comes back with her drink and she loses her mark.

_Frell._

No one gets paid that day.

 **II.**  
On this side of the Uncharted Territories, the loss of a payday, large or otherwise, is enough to drive a wedge between the most devoted of lovers. A pair of strangers are expected to immediately draw weapons and someone almost always ends up dead.

One successful job spells the difference between here and a more profitable market several thousand metras in another direction.

But a pretty face sometimes makes all the difference, and he has a remarkably pretty one.

 **III.**  
The next time they meet, he isn’t meant to be there.

Large bounties arise for any number of reasons – sometimes to attract only the sharpest of shooters and sometimes to encourage expedience. But most of the time the size of a bounty is an indication of how many people have already tried and failed. As the body count rises, so does the paycheck.

The bounty she is chasing has the potential to both get her out of the Uncharted Territories and to allow her to live comfortably for the rest of eternity. That’s a lot of bodies.

He’s hiding behind a makeshift bar that he was serving at before th shooting began. Now he’s just waiting for the shooting to stop so he can go home. He wonders if any of the corpses have money in their pockets as that will the the only way he’s getting paid tonight.

She almost trips over him on the way through and in a moment of misguided charity and hope that two bodies are better than one, she hands him a spare pulse pistol and tells him to follow her.  Turns out that he doesn’t like being out in the open where people can shoot him, weapon or no weapon. He abandons ship at the first available opportunity, taking her gun with him.

_Double frell._

**IV.**  
Bartenders don’t make good assassins. They make even poorer sidekicks, especially when they’re running as fast as they can in the opposite direction.  However, something arrests his attention as he exits the building.

Silence.

In times like this, silence usually means someone is dead.

 **V.**  
She backs into a corner, warily eyeing off the six guns pointed at her. She silently runs the numbers and determines that her chances of survival are barely worth putting a number to.

But they’re greater than zero.

She raises her hands in insincere surrender and as she slowly stoops to place her weapon on the ground, she takes a shot.

Her pistol jams.

_Still better than zero._

**VI.**  
When she comes to, he’s crouching over her, either trying to find a pulse or robbing her. But she’s not waiting around to find out.

It only takes a second to flip him and he’s on his back with a gun pointed at his head. He poses the same level of danger as a baby Hynerian.  

Maybe less.

They stay like that for awhile as she tries to make her world stop spinning. She is sure that her target is long gone, taking with him any hope of getting off this rock anytime soon. She’s less sure about how she is still alive.

He’s grateful when he can breathe again, airways unconstricted by steely muscle or the unholy fear of death. He massages his throat gingerly, wondering if he has been damaged irreparably. She’s checking the room for any indication of where her long-departed quarry may be headed to next.

He asks her who she is and she either doesn’t hear or ignores him. Fuelled by nervousness, he introduces himself anyway.

His name is John and he works for a corporation that caters high-end parties. She isn’t particularly interested.

He can usually be found bartending at a new operation downtown and if she’s ever in the area, she should drop by and he’d be happy to give her a discount – you know, for saving his life. As a matter of fact would she like to go there now? Drinks are on him.

A long pregnant pause follows the proposition as he realises that he comes off as desperate and she considers the potential of an open bar. She decides that a person in her situation can’t afford to give up free anything, and agrees. In exchange, she offers her name – _Aeryn_.

Not like she’s going anywhere anyway.

 **VII.**  
The holovids tell of a period of galactic history where people were less concerned about the quantity of credits to their name than they were about having any credits at all. They tell of a time where brother turned against brother not out of malice but out of necessity. It was this era that saw the rise of the bounty hunter, the smuggler and the thief. Professions born when instinct for survival finally overrode long-defined moral codes. These criminals, the first of their kind, went down in legend because their actions were of a kind not seen before.

A new legend was waiting in the wings. They just didn’t know it yet.

 **VIII.**  
The events seemed unrelated at first - a series of separate robberies across the Uncharted Territories, carefully filed under ‘minor incidents’ and given no more than a micron’s thought.

In the Uncharted Territories, petty theft is rampant and there’s nothing to be gained by wasting resources and chasing shadows. Losses are written off as incidentals, and those mobsters posing as law enforcement go back to counting their money.

But people tend to take notice when a Shadow Depository is emptied.

It’s not the first time things haven’t gone to plan but it’s the first time either has felt any guilt after the job is done.  He stands gazing mutely at the pistol lying on table. The scene plays in his mind over and over, certain aspects slowly magnifying to a monstrous dimension. Two shots - clinical in their execution; the guard at his feet, blood pooling at the toes of his boots.

File that under ‘minor incidents’.

She shoves a bag into his hands. It’s enough to get them out of the Uncharted Territories and buy each of them a new beginning. This is the end for both of them.

He isn’t quite so confident. While murder may be the currency of choice in this part of space, such heavy theft usually carries a much higher punishment.  You can’t rewrite the past.

 **IX.**  
The official story is that luck and clever detective work is what led to the end.

The truth, like all things out in this part of space, is a little more murky.

The prevailing theory is that it was a less-than-anonymous tip that was traded in for some sort of consideration. Some say it was for favour; a chestful of borinium ingots; the assurance of safe passage back into Peacekeeper space. Some even claim that it was conscience that finally pricked and that an undeniable sense of duty led to the tip-off.

Whatever the reason and whoever the informant, the implications remain the same.

It was worth two lives.

 **X.**  
It was a routine hand-off with a few extra, unexpected participants.

And guns. Lots of guns.

The tale is romanticised to say that the two were killed in each other’s arms; or back-to-back, defending one another. That John and Aeryn pulled themselves from the wreckage long after the trap was sprung and they continue to survive, somewhere out in the galaxy.

Reality is far bleaker.

Their ship was destroyed with no uncertainty regarding survivors. When the firing stopped, any corpses that may have been left behind were ash. Nothing remained, save a story.  A story that turned into legend.

_**Fin.** _

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by an AllOfThePrompts tumblr prompt set (#389). Also because I've been listening to the Bonnie & Clyde soundtrack on repeat for months.


End file.
